


Avoid The Pain In It

by Damalia (Achrya)



Series: Blackbirds and Firestarters [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Language, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Prostitution, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5833369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean is a street kid turned hero, working as Blackbird, one of Wall City's resident vigilantes. Marco is a thief and an occasional reluctant hero, among other things. They've been dancing around each other since the first time they met but Stray's finally made his move. Unfortunately some things are easy to want and hard to have. </p><p> </p><p>  <em>He looked to the side, thought about Blackbird sitting on his couch with a carton of Thai food on his lap, smelling like heat and slick and agitation, and shook his head. “Not this time. Or...not for sex anyway. If you just wanted-”</em><br/><em>“No, I want to get fucked but thanks. I guess this is why god created sex toys and dial-an-alpha services.” Armin’s nose wrinkled for a moment then his expression smoothed into something cautious. “I thought he turned you down?”</em><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo. My plan is to have a few Stray/Blackbird ‘moments’ between now and Valentine’s day, showing the evolution of their relationship, starting with this.
> 
> Warnings: References to child abuse/child sexual abuse less glossed over than last time. Drug use if you squint. Some implications of panic attacks/PTSD if, again, you squint. Avoidance is Jean's coping mechanism so there's never anything graphic. That said his views are...not the best. 
> 
> This world is very much based on Batman, with Talon/Erwin in the Batman role and Cat/Levi in the Catwoman role, each with their own little 'family' helping them. Jean's occupying the Jason Todd/Red Hood spot.

 

Jean called.

Of course he called. 

But not to accept even though that was something he wanted so much it made his stomach hurt. 

He’d spent every heat since meeting Erwin alone, by choice and without any real thought to being with someone, but once the idea of being able to share it with someone he actually liked and was attracted to was in his head he couldn’t let it go. 

It was hormones, the crazy burning hunger that took hold before and during his heat, trying to push out all the reasons he didn’t do that out of his head and reduce it down to ‘but it would be so good’. And he could just tell it would be good, that Stray was one of those alphas who’d take care of the person they were with and be careful when he needed to be and rough when that was the thing, and wouldn’t that be amazing after so much  _ bad _ ? 

But he couldn’t let hormones be the deciding factor in anything he did. 

Not that knowing that made it easy to just set it aside because something about Stray made him desperate for it. The other man had him hard, wet, and wanting just from thinking about warm brown eyes, hands that gave him the freedom to back off if he wanted to, and slow searing kisses. 

And that wasn’t to say it was just the oncoming heat that was getting to him, though it certainly kicked things up from ‘controllable crush’ to ‘actually sex sounds great’, a distinction Jean didn’t really know what to do with. 

He didn’t exactly have the best of experiences to draw on and the thought of something better certainly appealed in it’s own way. More than appealed since the thought was haunting him, pulling him back to it everytime he tried to focus on something else, and that just wasn’t like him at all. 

He’d never dated, hadn’t slept with or shared a heat with anyone in years. He’d just set all of that stuff off to the side somewhere; there were other things to think about like training and not dying, and it wasn’t like he could start going out with a normal person and sleep with them.

His body was a war zone for starters. 

He had an actual secret identity.

He had nightmares. He woke up screaming sometimes, His first few weeks after moving in with Erwin had been spent huddled in bed crying for his mother and suffering through nightmares even when he was awake, too sick to do much else, and the night terrors hadn’t gotten any better since then. Now he had the things he’d done as Blackbird, people he’d hurt and people he hadn’t been able to save, to haunt him as well.

His heats, while pleasantly regular, were a total clusterfuck. He didn’t have any awkward teenage first time or gentle heat experiences like other people had to make being alone not so bad. All he had were memories of being heat sick and out of his mind, falling into dark places inside his head and then coming out the otherside hating himself. 

He’d taught himself to take all the things and put them away in his head where they couldn’t bother him most of the time but being in heat could push them around, shake things loose, and it didn’t make for a good time. 

So. He had his reasons. Tons of reasons and they were good ones. 

He wasn’t exactly fit for the kind of thing Stray was offering, thought maybe being with someone in a normal way was just beyond him, but he also felt like he owed a real explanation and not just something half assed over the phone.

Stray deserved better than that. 

So he called and Stray, dropping the flirting to actually sound surprised and excited, agreed to meet up.

Stray had a place in on the edge of the part of Wall that was affectionately, and accurately, called Crime Alley. Once, before it had gone to shit, the neighborhood had been called Jinea, like the Narrows had been Trost, but now only people from outside of the city and people who were older and nostalgic called it that. 

The Landfill, The Narrows, and The Underground were the Unholy Trio as far as the gangs and crime went. The Underground was the worst, block after block of crumbling condemned buildings full of junkies and the homeless, somehow wedged in the heart of Mitras, the so called Cultural Distract, but the Narrows with it’s police corruption and air that always felt too heavy, too hot, too desperate wasn’t much better. 

The less said about the ‘Fill the better. 

Erwin, Talon, liked to sit over his map of the city and obsess about how to take back those neighborhoods but Jean figured they’d be better off building a wall with no way in or out around some of them. Not that he’d ever say that to Talon, since he liked not hearing lectures about how Wall and the people inside of it were basically good and just needed a chance to get past the horrorshow that had taken hold in the past thirty or so years. 

Crime Alley still had a decent lower-middle/upper-lower class population and when Jean had first started working with Talon they’d all thought it would be the next to be swallowed up. Instead it held steady, not tipping one way or the other. 

He’d expected Stray to live somewhere more Uptown but, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure why that was. The other man had a distinctly Lower Wall accent, similar to the one Erwin had trained Jean out of, and if he knew nothing else it was all the money in the world didn’t take the scummy neighborhood out of a person. 

It just cleaned them up and put better clothes on them

He went four days after the warehouse meeting, in full uniform including the mask. He felt out of place as soon as he climbed in from the fire escape. It was very much someone’s home, not a dark and gloomy lair or safehouse. 

It was a small efficiency with everything but the bathroom visible but it was surprisingly nice. Open kitchen in soft creams and warm woods with a counter that looked like it was made of stone, all hardwood floors, furniture that would have been just as at home in Erwin’s mansion, and tidy looking bedroom area. There were personal touches, art on the wall in the living room, a TV showing the news with the volume turned low, pictures of people on various surfaces, and no weapons or tools to be seen.

There was an open door on the same wall the bed was pressed against, painted a soft purple that stood out against the otherwise bland wall, and he could see part of a bathtub and hear water running. 

His eyes lingered on the bed for a moment as a familiar warmth  stirred inside of him. This had been stupid. He should have asked for a neutral location, a rooftop around the Mitras district or a park or...anything except Stray’s apartment.

It smelled like him, salty sweet and masculine, and without suppressants in his blood, so close to his heat, it was practically calling out to him. His licked his lips, imagined he could taste Stray in the air, then took a step back towards the window. 

He would just call and decline. He’d felt like this was the sort of thing he needed to be in person but he could see, very clearly, where that had been a bad idea. Stray would understand; he was, as much as Jean complained about him, a good guy. 

Annoyingly charming with really questionable career choices, who actually decided to become an international jewel thief's protege anyway (asked the guy who’d become a masked vigilante's partner) and terrible taste in people, as evidenced by the entire situation, but a good person. 

“You leaving already Birdie?” 

Fuck. 

Jean turned his gaze back to the bathroom door, biting his lip hard at the sight of Stray standing there, toweling off his hair, peering at him over the top of dark framed glasses. No mask, no goggles, just...his face.

It was a nice face; Jean had already been pretty sure it would be but confirmation was...nice. 

He wasn’t wearing anything except sweatpants that were riding almost obscenely low, exposing that those freckles on his face spread much MUCH further than that. 

So much further. 

In the years they’d been associated they’d never seen each other out of their costumes and Jean had never been out of his mask. Not even during that awkward kidnapping and false heat incident when Stray could have taken a peak (could have done a lot of things if he’d wanted to and Jean would have enthusiastically agreed to all of it in that moment) but had merely sat with him and held him until they’d been found. 

That was part of the reason he was even here. If Stray had responded to him he would have understood; he’d been all but begging for it. Besides it had been his own fault for falling into such an obvious trap and not having backup suppressants with him. Stray had just been unfortunate enough to get caught up and if he had decided to make use of Jean’s heat induced willingness no one would have blamed him. 

But he hadn’t. The whole thing had blown over with Jean a little embarrassed about some of the shit he’d said but that was about it as far as fallout went. It could have been different, could have turned out like all of his other experiences and changed everything. 

He wouldn’t have been mad but he wouldn’t have been able to look Stray in the eye ever again and he would have missed that. 

Stray laughed, that stupid velvet smooth sound that never failed to twist Jean’s stomach into knots, and he forced himself to look away from where a grouping of freckles and dark wiry hair trailed under the waistband of those sweatpants, uncomfortably aware that he’d been caught staring.

It was a different kind of Stray standing in front of him, softer somehow with a head of wet curling hair and peering at him from behind glasses. Softer and somehow more appealing than the catsuit and swagger he was used to. He swore he could hear his heart pounding in his chest and a flush that had less to do with being embarrassed and more to do with arousal was creeping up the back of his neck.

“I wasn’t leaving?” Oh good, he hadn’t lost the ability to talk in the face of...all of that. Because _ that _ would have been embarrassing, unlike getting caught practically drooling. 

“How can you be so bad at lying? Isn’t that a job hazard?” It was familiar teasing and, unfortunately, not untrue.

He smiled wryly. “I’m guess I’m bad at faking it.” 

Stray’s answering smile was absolutely filthy and very much the flirty confidence he was used to seeing; Jean didn’t think he’d ever regretted word choice so immediately. “No need to fake it with me.” 

Jean rolled his eyes. “Stray. That’s terrible and you should be ashamed.” 

Stray’s costume was of the skintight variety so Jean had always assumed that, aside from the important-slash-delicate bits, he had a pretty good idea what was going on under it. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know that the line of work they were in didn’t demand a certain level of...fitness but it was different to see all that light tan skin, tight over shifting muscle, exposed.

It was downright surreal to see marks and scars so like his own, thin lines of pale raised flash, twisted puckered circles of scar tissue, fading bruises...all the signs of a body used to fighting.  

He chanced a look back at Stray’s abs then looked at the floor. 

Surreal and something that made his heart beat just a little bit faster as he realized this was someone he could show his body without having to explain why he’d been stabbed and shot and had bones broken so often in his eighteen years.

It was a heavy realization and he had to swallow to clear the sudden lump in his throat.

Jean was suddenly longing for the leather and straps that were Stray’s costume, which was...absurd. He worked with Erwin, who was in disgustingly good shape, had sparred with Eren and Mikasa and dealt with half dressed hard bodies pressed against his own without issue but now suddenly he was what, a stuttering horney teenager? 

Wasn’t he a few years too late for that stage?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Stray’s wink was as far from shame as a person could get. “And you can just call me Marco since I’m maskless. And shirtless.”

Jean’s lip curled. He doubted he’d be doing that; Stray was Stray to him. Real names were strange and too...intimate. “I’ve noticed.” 

“You want anything? I’ve got water, soda, some shady looking green juice that Kitten drinks that I’ve never tried, some tea I could make, beer.” Stray listed. He walked towards the kitchen as he spoke, coming close enough to Jean that he could smell soap and  _ alpha  _ trailing after him. 

He shuddered and a jolt of  _ wantneed  _ surged through him. Too close to his heat, way too close. He’d wasted all that time going back and forth with himself and now he was right on the cusp of things, hoping that today wasn’t going to be it. He didn’t think it was, he had a pretty good handle on the signs and symptoms after roughly 4 heats a year for the past six years, but he could feel the edge of something greedy, wanting, and sticky hot starting to creep in.  

Jean shook his head. “No. I’m not  staying.”

Stray shot him a questioning look over his shoulder, suddenly more confused puppy than irritatingly attractive thief, before bending down to grab something out of his refrigerator. 

Jean looked at the ceiling instead of Stray’s ass. “I wanted to explain in person. Your offer was, uh, nice but I can’t...do that with you.” 

“I wasn’t really aiming for ‘nice’ but thanks I guess?” Stray’s expression was more guarded than Jean could ever remember seeing it. He set a bottle of water on the kitchen island then levered himself up onto a stool. “I appreciate being let down gently but ‘I’m not interested’ over the phone would have been fine.” 

Jean crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to frown. “It’s not that I’m not interested. Have you seen yourself?”

“Uh?” Stray rubbed at the back of his neck, a flush spreading over his face. “Well. Okay. I like to think I have other things going for me-”

“You’re also nice and occasionally funny when you aren’t being irritating and I’m pretty sure you’ve saved me from getting my head split open a half dozen times this year so that’s a plus.” There were other things, lots of them, but Jean felt stupid enough without listing all the things about Stray that didn’t completely bother him. 

Stray, as it turned out, was sort of adorable when he got flustered. He blinked, visibly startled, then coughed and looked away. “This is the most confusing rejection I’ve ever heard and I was there when Talon told Cat that he couldn’t afford to care about anything ‘except the city and her people’.”

Stray did a fairly decent Talon impression, complete with a stubbornly set jaw and a weird wiggle thing to emphasize his eyebrows.

Jean filed that away to ask Erwin about later, it absolutely sounded like something the older man would have said, then rubbed at his eyes as he tried to order his thoughts. 

Less than five minutes in and he was fucking it all up. Funny becuase dealing with people was, actually, what he was better at than all the others. Eren’s ‘bedside’ manner was basically non-existent, Mikasa had issues showing emotion towards anyone but Eren, and Erwin played the friendly billionaire role well by day but by night he could be...intense. Jean however did well with the people they helped and had always able to connect to victims for reasons he didn’t understand. 

Yet here, like this, he was floundering. 

He exhaled then, very aware of Stray’s eyes on him, walked over to the island. He didn’t sit, opting to stay on the other side and put his hands on the cool stone top. He needed to do this, wanted to do it. He’d practiced what to say over and over but now, with Stray’s eyes on him and the other man so close it was harder than he’d expected. The words just dropped right out of his head like they hadn’t been there at all.  

“It’s not a rejection. It’s more like...a...something else?” He said, trying to find the right words and then cringed because those weren’t it.

Stray, thankfully, didn’t start mocking him or point out just how stupid that sounded. He didn’t say anything at all which didn’t do much for Jean’s nervousness. 

“We’re friends right? And I don’t want to be not friends after we slept together-” Stray shifted in his seat, looking faintly offended. 

“That wouldn’t- I don’t just want to sleep with you.”

“O-oh.” Jean stuttered.

“I’d like more than that, if that’s what you wanted too. I guess I didn’t say that but I didn’t think I needed to.” Stray frowned, looking so much like Jean had hurt him that it made something in his chest ache. “I always thought it was pretty obvious that I like you Birdie, a lot. I don’t intend to sleep with you and then ditch you, you should know me better than that.” 

“I was actually going to say we wouldn’t be friends anymore because I’d probably scare you off.” Stray slid from hurt back to wide eyed disbelief. 

“Scare me off? I’ve followed you into a burning building for reasons not related to money. I think I’m past the being scared off point.”

He breathed in, steeling himself, then exhaled slowly. “I don’t share my heats with other people because I don’t...handle them well. Some stuff happened, before I started working with Talon, and it’s fucked. Not fun for anyone. Nightmares and I might cry or just lose it or something like that. I haven’t had sex in almost five years and I don’t know if I even like it or could like it and it’s just...stuff.”

He trailed off lamely, realizing he’d just said a lot more than he’d meant to and wasn’t at all sure if he was making sense or explaining things or just making it worse. Maybe he should have just opened with ‘Hi, see, the thing is the place I ended up after my mom died made me work to keep my spot and it was bad time and now I’m a freak who spends half my heat a sobbing mess.’

...probably not.  

Stray regarded him silently, usually expressive eyes giving away nothing. Jean swallowed then pushed away from the island, suddenly aware that he’d just given some kind of weird ‘woe is me’ confessional in response to someone telling him they liked him. 

He should have done this over the phone. 

“So. Yeah. I can’t have someone else dealing with that and I just wanted to tell you in person so you didn’t think I was blowing you off or it was a problem with you and I am just going to go now.”

He intended to turn and leave (and maybe lock himself in his room and to get really drunk and depressed before his heat finally started.) but a hand around his wrist made him stop. Stray wasn’t holding him tight, it was little more than light press of fingers against his skin, and if he wanted to pull away it would have been easy. 

“I’d like to deal with it, if you wanted me to let me.” Stray’s brows knit together, making it look as if he was choosing each word carefully. “But maybe we could decide on something that sounds better than ‘deal with’. I like you and I’m not scared off is what I’m trying to say. I don’t need you to spend your heat with me or...anything right now. We can hang out and just be friends if that’s what you want.”

Jean stared; he’d considered a bunch of potential reactions, ranging for questions he didn’t want to answer to anger at being told no, but somehow quite acceptance hadn’t been one of them. His surprise must have shown because Stray looked sad suddenly but then he was turning away, sliding off his chair and heading for one of the kitchen drawers.

“How do you feel about Thai? There’s a place that delivers and it’s pretty good. Basically all I eat lately.” 

Jean blinked, trying to figure out how they’d suddenly jumped to the subject of food. Stray dug around in the drawer, shifting papers around before pulling out what looked like a folded up menu. He brought it back to the island, unfolding it then putting it down where Jean could see it. 

“So? Food?” 

“Food.” Jean echoed.  

Stray nodded. “Yeah. Maybe a movie? I’ve got hulu.” 

It was a little anticlimactic after all the stress and how he’d practically been tearing out his hair trying to figure out how to handle the conversation. 

“Just like that?” 

“...yes? Or we could talk, if you wanted to talk. Did you want to talk?”

He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less. He licked his lips then met Stray’s eyes and found nothing but what looked like sincerity. 

“I could watch a movie.” He said finally. 

Stray’s answering smile seemed a little less forced than the one before it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is kind of a strange thing because there isn’t ‘resolution’ really but...well, I don’t think these are issues you resolve in just one conversation (not that I’d call it a conversation) or all at once. And that’s without factoring in the secret identity thing. (Jean, still in his mask/Blackbird costume. Marco, walking around in sweatpants.) It's one of those stutters and stops things, moving forward in bits and pieces.  
> Anyway, pretty sure the next thing is Marco's PoV and is about masks, names, kisses in warehouses and Marco’s issues with the one shared so far and I think that part makes this part feel less strange (to me anyway.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked to the side, thought about Blackbird sitting on his couch with a carton of Thai food on his lap, smelling like heat and slick and agitation, and shook his head. “Not this time. Or...not for sex anyway. If you just wanted-”
> 
> “No, I want to get fucked but thanks. I guess this is why god created sex toys and dial-an-alpha services.”
> 
> Marco squinted, trying not to let his distaste for the idea of phone ordered ‘heat approved’ alphas show. It wasn’t his place to judge. Besides any poor sap trying to keep up with Armin was going to be earning every penny and would probably retire shortly thereafter.
> 
> “I’m really not even sure where to start with that.”
> 
> Armin’s nose wrinkled for a moment then his expression smoothed into something cautious. “I thought he turned you down?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little costume/clothing porn that I swear is more about highlight the differences before Blackbird I (Eren) and Blackbird II (Jean) than my love of costume porn.  
> I think I'll be keeping all these stories together for now. Just for ease and to save myself from coming up with new titles/summaries. (I'm lazy)  
> There's a little past Armin/Marco mentioned in this chapter. 
> 
> Warnings: Non-graphic rape, kidnapping, language, suicidal thoughts mentioned, Jean being a really really bitter kid, and Marco's entire adult life.  
> Levi=Cat, Erwin=Talon, Armin=Kitten, Jean=Blackbird II, Eren= Original Blackbird, Mikasa=Redwing

_ They were peering down through the skylight at their target, a painting they’d been hired to liberate from some Mitras trust fund type and hand over to it’s ‘rightful’ owner over in Europe, when Talon dropped onto the roof with the soft sound of boots hitting gravel and the barely there whoosh of the air tanks from his gear. Cat was up out of his crouch immediately, hands darting towards the blades he kept strapped around his hip, placing himself between Kitten, Stray, and Talon.   _

_ Kitten rolled his eyes, saying without a word that he didn’t know why their mentor bothered with the posturing at all. Talon didn’t really bother them much, usually hauling Cat off into a dark corner to lecture him or flirt with him or have some kind of alpha territorial staredown that wasn’t really that at all, or whatever it was they did before chasing them off but it wasn’t like he ever tried to take them to jail.  _

_ Stray was pretty sure Talon had better things to worry about than a few rich assholes losing paintings or jewels or information being brokered when Wall City had an huge problem with Titan, gangs, prostitution and omega trafficking, weapons smuggling in and out of the city, police corruption, government officials willing to be bought by the ever expanding mafia presence and, as late, some vaguely psychotic and superpowered types. He was pretty sure the way he occasionally showed up was more about dealing with Cat and keeping up appearances than anything else. _

_ Another human shaped shadow hit the roof after Talon and, for a moment, Stray was excited. It had been around eighteen months since he had last seen Blackbird or Redwing but he’d heard some whispers from their street contacts that Blackbird had been spotted patrolling recently.  _

_ For a while they hadn’t even been sure Blackbird was still alive. They’d all seen him fall; sometimes Stray closed his eyes and could still hear the snapping of Blackbird’s line and the choked off shout before he’d hit the ground. Talon had vanished for months after that and things had started going even more to shit. Even though Talon was only one man just the fear of encountering him had turned out to keep a lot of otherwise shity people in line.  _

_ But then Talon had come back without either of his sidekicks, refusing to speak on them other than to confirm they were ‘fine’ and things were more or less back to normal now.  _

_ Blackbird stepped up to stand next to Talon and Stray found himself drawing back in alarm.  _

_ That wasn’t Blackbird. The costume was similar; sleek and black, covering him from neck to ankle with the double wing symbol in dark blue stretched across his chest, black domino mask with reflective white lenses over the eyes hiding everything from the brow bone down to his nose, and heavy black boots but that’s where the similarities ended. Before there had been flexible spiked plating across the knuckles, elbows, and knees, a utility belt, and no weapons. Now there was a cloak, hood pulled up to cast much of Blackbird’s face into shadow, and a belt lined with glittering silver blades crossing the utility belt, forming an X right over his hips.  _

_ Before Blackbird, while not particularly tall, had been broad and muscular befitting the hands-on brawler style of fighting he prefered. This one was a little shorter, limbs longer and wiry, and shoulders narrower. _

_ “Who the fuck is this?” Cat asked; Stray could see the tension in the older man’s shoulders, could practically read the paranoia in the small body.  _

_ Talon glanced down, inclining his head slightly. Blackbird snorted, a harsh ugly sound, then the hood was pushed back to show ash brown hair and an angular face. Something about him seemed young even though there was none of the roundness to his face kids usually had.  _

_ Cat scowled then his hands dropped to his side, a sign that he wasn’t going to attack. “Tch. You dropped the last one off a building and then got yourself a replacement?”  _

_ Talon was nearly impossible to read most of the time, the cowl he wore completely covering everything except his mouth and chin, but there was no mistaking the way he winced. Blackbird’s fingers twitched then he tilted his chin up. _

_ “The other one got fired. I’m the improved version.”  _

\---

When Armin called to ask if he’s free for the usual every other Thursday Trip Marco knew it was more of a courtesy or check up call than anything else. Last time they’d spoken had been right after Blackbird had called to set up a meeting and he’d asked Armin to handle a small recon job for him so he could help ‘a friend’. 

Armin had just shaken his head and told him to have fun. 

For his part Marco had never intended to break their standing date; he’d figured that the worst of Blackbird’s heat would be over by Thursday and that a few hours alone would be okay. He liked Blackbird, really liked him, but there were few things more important to him than his family, something he considered Armin to be part of. 

More his family than his actual family in some ways.

So the call was not so much a ‘are we doing this’ as ‘hey, how are you, did everything go well, do you need me to bring by food or something?’ Marco appreciated the sentiment and even smiled at the way his friend hesitated and then said he’d be around soon when he confirmed that they were still on. 

He was already outside of his apartment, unbothered by the chill in the spring air, when Armin pulled up. The blond leaned out of the drivers’ side window, smiling up at him broadly even though his eyes were concerned. 

“Hey.” Armin said, voice pitched low. “Your parent’s place first?” 

“Sure. Let me drive?” The blond quirked an eyebrow at him but opened up the door and stepped out. He was dressed casually, tight jeans and a Sina University shirt cut into a crop top, like it hadn’t been snowing two weeks ago, and Marco could see pale shimmery gray tones painted over his eyes, making the blue seem darker. His hair, dark blue at the roots that faded down into a pale blue tinted platinum, was pulled into a low ponytail, bouncing behind him as he walked around to the other side of the car.

Marco wasn’t exactly attracted to the blond in the traditional sense, as it turned out he was more interested in long lean muscle, hard eyes, and a sharp tongue than he was in viciously pragmatic and pretty, but he wasn’t above a little appreciation.

Armin was his best friend, one of a depressingly small number of people who got to see both sides of him, Marco and Stray, and understood that really he was some of both and some of neither. 

They’d known each other about six years now; Armin had already been working with Levi when he’d been brought in, the lone alpha between two very different but very forceful and dominant omegas. It had challenged a lot of things he’d thought he knew about the world and how things were supposed to be. He hadn’t ever been some jerk knothead alpha or anything, his parents wouldn’t have tolerated something like that, but he’d always been more or or less content to subscribe to the belief that omegas were just naturally inclined to be submissive, to be weaker. Being from a family of all betas and alphas, having mostly alpha friends, he’d just never had a reason to think any differently. 

Levi and Armin had cured him of that belief fast and, more often than not, painfully. 

He was no longer subject to Levi’s unorthodox training methods (His first lesson with their gear had been strapping it on, flipping through the pamphlet Armin had handed him, and being kicked off a twenty story building.), near constant insults, taking a shamefully small percentage of their pay, or acting as Armin’s jack-of-all-trades bitch but his alpha pride still bore the bruises from all the hits it had taken. 

Levi and Armin had both came from bad places. He didn’t know all the details and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He knew Levi had grown up in the Underground, was an orphan, had lost his first two partners and meet Talon all on the same night almost fifteen years ago. He knew Armin had lost his parents when he was young, had been raised by his grandfather and then ended up alone in the Landfill, a place no child should live let alone alone. He knew Levi had rescued Armin from something terrible. 

He wasn’t like them. He’d grown up in a small brownstone in Crime Alley with his parents and five siblings. He’d been poor but taken care of and well loved. He’d wanted to be a cop, imagining a world where he could really protect and serve the city and all the people in it. He hadn’t realized what really lurked just beneath the surface in Wall, hadn’t realized how awful it could be for people. 

He knew better now. Knew that people could be burned and twisted and shaped by their city, become more than what they were ‘supposed’ to be. 

In the end he was certain he was a better person for being with Levi and Armin.

A little more humble, a little more appreciative of what the other dynamics brought to the table, less idealistic, more aware. Was able to think and imagine things he never would have been able to before though he wasn’t always sure being better about to see how the world could be was a good thing. 

There were some things he’d put his hands in that he’d never get them clean of. Connections he could make that he wished he couldn’t. 

“How old do you think Blackbird is?” 

“Hmm?” Armin looked surprised at the question then shrugged. “He was pretty young when he started working with Talon soo...19? 18? ...why, did you find out he’s jailbait? Is that why you’re free?” 

Armin waggled his eyebrows and Marco made himself laugh. 

_ “I haven’t had sex in almost five years and I don’t know if I even like it or could like it.” Blackbird’s hand’s curled into angry fists and the acrid scent of shame burned Marco’s nose. _

\---

_ Stray didn’t need to see Cat’s eyes behind his green tinted goggles to know he was rolling them. “Sure brat. Talon did you need something or are you just showing off the newbie?”  _

_ Talon looked at Blackbird in a way that managed to be a warning even with most of his face out of sight before sighing.  _

_ “I need information.”  _

_ Cat nodded once then, with one last look down into the dark loft apartment they were supposed to be robbing, strode away with Talon at his heels. Stray wasn’t sure why sharing information needed to be done out of earshot but that was how those two always did it and he’d learned the hard way not to question Cat.  _

_ The same couldn’t be said for Blackbird. He made a huffy noise then reached up to rub over the short hair at the back of his neck. “What’s that about?”  _

_ “That’s just how they talk.” Stray shrugged.  _

_ Kitten pushed a strand of hair that had fallen free of the tight bun it was fixed in behind his ear. “They want us to think its information swapping but I’m pretty sure that’s how they agree where to meet up to have sex.” _

_ Stray smiled slightly; Kitten was convinced there was more going on between their mentor and the hero than met the eye. Stray couldn’t really see Cat as the ‘sex’ type but he was willing to admit there seemed to be a strange kind of tension between the two men. _

_ Blackbird made a disgusted noise. Kitten eyed him, lips pressing into a thin line.  _

_ “Sorry, you’re too young to hear that aren’t you?”  _

_ Stray decided it was for the best that he didn’t point out that at all of fifteen and sixteen there were people who would have said the same about the two of them.  _

_ “Too young? I don’t think I’ve ever been called too young before.” He sounded genuinely amused, not a single trace of mockery to be found. “I always figured I was just about old enough. Talon thinks so anyway.”  _

_ “Why is that? What makes you ‘improved’?” There was a kind of scorn to Kitten’s voice that Stray didn’t think he’d ever heard before but then the other (first?) Blackbird had been hurt while trying to protect him and that wasn’t something easily gotten over.  _

_ Kitten hadn’t been able to come out with them, to even put on his suit, without having a panic attack for three months and Stray knew he still had the nightmares.  _

_ Blackbird turned to look at him, white lenses in his mask making it impossible to see his eyes and giving him the eerie look the birds seemed to favor. “I’m not suicidal for starters.” _

_ Kitten’s face twisted. “What? Blackbird wasn’t-” _

_ “Jumping off a building when one of your lines is cut seems-” _

_ This was going to end badly. He didn’t know if this Blackbird knew it but Kitten wasn’t exactly the delicate little thing he appeared to be and if pushed right there was a steely eyed ability to do harm waiting to come out.  _

_ Kitten stepped forward, the threat on his face painfully clear. Stray moved as well, sliding between them and putting his hands on Kitten’s shoulders. Blue eyes narrowed and then, teeth bared, Kitten wrenched himself away and stomped over to the ledge of the building. Stray didn’t watch him leave but he heard the soft sound of his gear firing.  _

_ Stray glanced at Blackbird, irritated on Kitten’s behalf. “The other Blackbird was nicer.”  _

_ “What good is being nice if you’re just throwing your life away in the process?” Blackbird asked, turning away from him. Talon and Cat were coming back towards them and Cat’s expression was stormy. “Who can you help if you’re dead?” _

_ Stray found he didn’t have an answer for that. _

_ “Blackbird we’ve got two addresses.” Talon didn’t waste anytime once he was close enough. “One in the Landfill and the other is in the Narrows. I can take the Nar-”  _

_ “I’ll take the Narrows.” The hood was pulled back up. “I don’t know the ‘Fill like you do.”  _

_ “Take Stray with you.” Cat said. Stray wanted to argue, to ask why the hell he was being sent to do hero crap when they were right on top of their target, to ask if this was another one of Cat’s tests because he’d thought that, after two years working together, they were done with that.  _

_ But one look from Cat and all thoughts of argument fled.  _

_ “I hope you can keep up.” Blackbird mumbled.  _

\---

They were winding through the streets of Crime Alley, a low thrum of music filling the car, as Armin tapped away at his phone. He glanced over once, at a redlight, saw what looked like blueprints and chuckled. 

“A job?” 

“Mmm. There’s a big gala coming up. Erwin Smith is getting some kind of reward for humanitarian stuff.” Armin tapped something then rotated the image with a thoughtful frown. “There’s going to be a showing of Japanese art and someone wants a Jomon pot. I was looking forward to it, I have a gown I’ve never gotten to wear anywhere, but my heat is that week so I’m just doing the recon work for Levi.” 

Marco knew without asking which week that was, knowing Armin’s heat schedule perfectly by now, and hummed in response. Armin lowered the phone and turned to look up at him. 

“Are you going to be free?” He wasn’t asking about the job, if Levi wanted him along he’d let Marco know, but about his heat. There were a lot of heats and ruts between the two of them, some good and some not as good. Marco knew he was Armin’s prefered partner for those times. There was trust there and that was something in short supply, especially between alphas and omegas. 

It helped that Marco was just as fine spending the week cuddling and making sure Armin ate and drank when things got bad as he was with sex. 

He looked to the side, thought about Blackbird sitting on his couch with a carton of Thai food on his lap, smelling like heat and slick and agitation, and shook his head. “Not this time. Or...not for sex anyway. If you just wanted-”

“No, I want to get fucked but thanks. I guess this is why god created sex toys and dial-an-alpha services.”

Marco squinted, trying not to let his distaste for the idea of phone ordered ‘heat approved’ alphas show. It wasn’t his place to judge. Besides any poor sap trying to keep up with Armin was going to be earning every penny and would probably retire shortly thereafter. 

“I’m really not even sure where to start with that.”

Armin’s nose wrinkled for a moment then his expression smoothed into something cautious. “I thought he turned you down?”

Marco didn’t say anything but Armin rarely needed words to put things together. The blond tsked then settled back in his seat, phone coming back up in front of his face. 

“I don’t understand how you can have it that bad for that jerk.” 

\---

_ Stray learned three things about the new Blackbird that night.  _

_ The first was that he was fast and clearly had some skill with his gear. Stray didn’t know how long he’d been training with Talon, though he imagined no longer than the 18 months since the first Blackbird’s accident, but he was… _

_ Good.  _

_ Not the best Marco had ever seen, that honor went to Cat and then Redwing, and he looked a little rough at some points, took some turns a little wide and misjudged where to send the hooks a time or two, but he recovered almost immediately each time and managed to look like he’d never faltered at all while doing so.  _

_ Stray considered himself pretty good, had taken to the gear better than he’d expected once he got over being literally kicked off a building by Cat, but the easy time he expected to have keeping side by side with Blackbird didn’t turn out to be quite that simple a thing. _

_ Not to say it was overly hard either. Just...harder than expected.  _

_ The second was that he was an asshole.  _

_ Blackbird explained what they were doing as they went from building to building They were headed to a building a dealer down in the Narrows used to distribute drugs and girls. Girls had been turning up missing all over the city, Blackbird and Talon had been tracking the disappearances and trying to figure out what was going on but they’d figured they were probably runaways. It happened a lot, especially with kids from the poorer areas.  _

_ Then a friend in the Garrison had dropped them some information about a girl being seen grabbed right off the street near Sina U and it looked like the campus cops were just...burying it. They’d asked around, punched a few people, gotten enough info to come to Cat to narrow down the search and here they were.  _

_ Stray wasn’t sure why he was coming along and neither was Blackbird. In fact he’d sneered and said he ‘Don’t know why some thief would be interested.’ _

_ Which was pretty rude. Stray wasn’t not interested in things. He wanted to be a cop because he was interested in all the things that were so obviously wrong in Wall, he wanted to try and help. He just wanted to do it within the rules when the time came. He hoped to be able to change the police and all the people associated with the departments one day and he wouldn’t be able to do that as a vigilante who was on the most wanted list. _

_ He didn’t think what Talon did was wrong, not at all, but he wasn’t sure it got to the root of the problem.   _

_ And it wasn’t like he was some selfish jerk just because he worked with Cat and Kitten. He gave money to his parents to help them out, put it in college funds for his siblings, and then split up the rest between the church and different shelters and facilities in the worst parts of town. They only stole from the richest people in Wall, a lot of them shady criminals themselves, and he made sure the money he made went to help people.  _

_ And he kind of felt bad about it sometimes. It was just...easy. And fast. And the money was good so he dealt with breaking the law and that his parents thought he had fallen in with drugs or the mob or...something and had put him out the house so he had to drop money in their mailbox and hope they were using it.  _

_ Saying he was ‘some thief’ was pretty rude but, Stray’s feelings aside, it wasn’t the worst part.  _

_ He got them in through the door on the roof, expertly picking the lock and then creeping through the shadows to check things out before calling Blackbird down after him. Blackbird was probably good at stealth too but it was what Stray did. It was his job.  _

_ He found a room full of terrified looking girls huddled together on the third floor. They were dirty and tearstained, shivering together even though it was stifling hot in the tiny windowless room. It smelled, made his eyes water when he first opened the door, but he made himself smile around his gag reflex. He spoke to them softly as he picked the locks on the ankle cuffs that tethered them to a long bar that was anchored in the middle of the room and told them they were safe now.  _

_ Blackbird didn’t smile. He just looked at them through his mask then asked if they were all there, voice the same hard one he’d been using all night. One girl hiccuped something about the men who were keeping them dragging on of the newest girls downstairs.  _

_ Blackbird muttered something about ‘why didn’t you say that right away’ and stalked out. Stray hurried to let the last girl go, told them to stay lock the door after him and stay silent, then went after the ‘hero’.  _

_ He found him down on the mainfloor standing outside of a cracked open door.  _

_ He could just hear the sounds of a girl’s muffled crying over the sound of skin slapping wetly against skin. His stomach turned and it was much harder to not be sick standing there in that hallway than it had been up in the foul smelling room.  _

_ He moved, intending to push into the room and do something and how could Blackbird just stand there like that, staring at nothing. (Or Stray thought he was staring at nothing. The way his eyes were whited out made it hard to be sure what he might have been looking at.) _

_ A hand clamped around his wrist. “What-” He started to hiss. _

_ “Are those night vision lenses?” There was something strange about Blackbird’s voice, a blankness where there had been annoyance before. Stray noted it, filed it away for later because it really wasn’t the time, and nodded. “You’re gonna want to close your eyes and look away.” _

_ Blackbird didn’t let go of Stray as he bent down and carefully rolled something round and gunmetal gray through the gap in the doorway. Then, abruptly, he was yanked down and pulled close, Blackbird’s gloved hands clamping over his ears. He had a moment to wonder why he was being touched when something clicked in his head and he shut his eyes tight.  _

_ Even with his ears covered he heard the noise, swore he could feel it rattling his teeth right out of his head, and could see white exploding on the back of his eyelids. Then he was left with nothing but a low whine. He was pushed away and nearly toppled over, suddenly disoriented. _

_ Something was shoved into his hands and when he blinked his eyes open to look he saw he was holding a bunch of zip tie cuffs.  _

_ He wobbled and shook his head, the noise in his ears (brain?) almost unbearable, then told himself to just let it go and stumbled into the room after Blackbird. There were people, mostly men but a few women who smelled alpha, lips moving and arms flailing as they tried to move and ended up tripping over nothing. He looked around at them, struck dumb for a moment, then looked down at the cuffs.  _

_ Right. He could handle this.  _

_ A glance towards Blackbird found him wrapping a sheet around a small woman sobbing in front of a couch.  _

_ Stray’s heart ached.  _

_ He kicked the person closest to him and could just hear a pained grunt before he dropped down and yanked hands back to bind them.  _

_ The next thing he heard was Blackbird’s voice, quiet but firm. “Hey. Don’t cry.”  _

\---

They visited his parents and it was nice enough. They were still wary after everything that had happened but they adored Armin and somewhere amidst all the comments about making an honest man out of the blond and what cute children they’d have he thought maybe they still loved him. Then his mother said something about him being sure to stay honest and he found himself less sure about that. 

The day they found out he had no intention of ever really being with Armin and was just using his friend to stop them from setting him up with every nice girl or omega whose more or aunt or grandma they know from work or church was going to be a dark one. 

He left the envelope of money by the TV remote, which was a step up from dropping it in the mailbox during the dead of night, slipped some more to Marian for books for school, and told Mike he’d talk to someone about an internship when he went to work later that night.

He hated every minute of it. Hated how easy it had become to lie to everyone and felt like the money was some kind of twisted apology or bribe he was paying for them never turning him in and letting him back into the family. 

He expected the drive to the Landfill’s graveyard was a quiet one. He was used to it, Armin always withdrew into himself on the way over, eyes growing hard and distant. Marco often wondered what he thought about, what memories he was sifting through, what he was getting ready to say to the empty graves of his parents and the one where his grandfather rested. 

He didn’t go with him. Armin had never asked him to go and the one time he’d offered had been met with a flinch and a headshake. He would wait, in the car, for his partner to get back and then they’d go to Armin’s favorite greek place and slowly, so slowly, everything would return to normal over lamb kabobs and the spinach pie his friend favored. 

They had a routine. 

So when Armin spoke as they drifted past the burned out shells and crumbling remains of homes, sad broken facades with busted windows that looked into nothing but darkness, and the tent cities occupied by those who, years after the fire that had eaten everything, still couldn’t afford to leave, it startled him enough that he swerved into the opposite lane for a moment. 

“Did he tell you why he turned you down?” Armin asked, a tight smile on his face. 

Marco gripped the wheel a little tighter, considering. Blackbird’s problems weren’t his to tell to other people, not that he’d been told all that much really. He had some thoughts, was willing to make some guesses in the privacy of his own head, had some things he’d always suspected might be the case, but he didn’t know. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

He was tired of the people he cared about being sad people who, sometimes, had to hollow themselves out to survive while he watched, unable to do anything to help. He was late to all of their lives, stepped in far after whatever had happened to them, and had nothing to give except his company. 

He wasn’t really like any of them, not even now. 

“He has...rough heats.” 

They were at the graveyard, a ramshackle thing with monuments and headstones falling apart and slumping over, strangled by weeds left to grow wild. He wondered if Armin tended to his family's graves, cleaned them up as best he could, or just left them as ugly as everything else.

Armin was quiet, hand on the door, then rolled his shoulders as if trying to banish some ache. “Rough like irregular or rough like-”

“Rough.” 

Armin hummed then nodded. “Be careful.” 

Marco didn’t know if that was ‘be careful with him’ or ‘be careful with yourself’. He wanted to think both but who really knew. So instead he tapped the wheel and kept quiet until Armin was slipping out of the car. 

“I kissed him.” He’d thought about it a lot. The way he’d gotten close, put his hands on Blackbird and brought their lips together, how he’d felt the other man tense and then seemingly melt against him. 

He wondered if maybe he’d read it wrong. It had seemed like to thing to do in the moment; he’d been Stray, not Marco, and Stray was confident and bold and walked and talked to draw attention. Stray knew what he wanted and didn’t mind taking risks to get it.

Being Stray was the only way Marco could bare to wear that skintight stealth suit and not be tomato red the entire time. 

Marco wouldn’t have kissed Blackbird but Stray could. 

Couldn’t didn’t mean he should have. He tripped over it, wondered if he’d made Blackbird uncomfortable, pushed where he shouldn’t have. Thought about how agitated the omega had smelled while they ate and watched a movie and how quickly Blackbird had fled his apartment after. 

Armin shut the door then leaned down to peer at him through the window. “You’re too nice Marco.”  

\---

_ Once they had everyone cuffed, with Blackbird leaving the girl for a moment to help him subdue some of the feistier assholes who didn’t think temporary hearing loss was a good reason to just stay down, and the cops were called (not the local cops but a special taskforce out of Mitras according to Blackbird) Stray had thought they would leave.  _

_ Thief and vigilante didn’t exactly mix well with the cops, even the good ones.  _

_ But Blackbird just sat next to the girl. Stray hauled the bound people into one tight little corner, feeling a slithering kind of satisfaction in his stomach at the sight of them tied up and huddled together in fear. He caught bits of what was being said between Blackbird and the girl during his trips back and forth.  _

_ “I’m ruined. They ruined me.” She whispered and each work felt like physical pain to Stray. “Everyone will know. My parents-”  _

_ Blackbird shushed her when she started to cry again. “Don’t cry because of what those assholes did. Don’t let them have that.”  _

_ She rubbed at her eyes and huddled deeper in the sheet but there were no more tears. Stray wanted to say something, tell her she was wrong and that no one would care about this, that it wasn’t her fault but a look from Blackbird that he could feel the chill behind kept him away.  _

_ Later, when they were a few buildings over, crouched in the shadows watching the cops lead the women into ambulances and manhandle the assholes into police vehicles, dragging, stomping, and banging heads off of car roofs whenever they could, he turned to Blackbird. _

_ “Why didn’t you try to make her feel better? Do you think telling her not to cry helps?” _

_ “I don’t know.” Blackbird said. He was squatting on the edge of the building, hands on his knees.  _

_ Stray shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t know? Do you think telling her she wasn’t ruined might have helped?”  _

_ “Do you think telling her how she’s allowed to feel would help?” Blackbird turned to look at him. “Can’t she have that?”  _

_ The third thing Stray realized about Blackbird was that he was...something Stray didn’t know how to define.  _

_ He didn’t have a response so they sat in silence, watching.  _

_ Blackbird left first but Stray stayed long after the last cop had gone. Cat appeared next to him, seemingly melting out of thin air without a sound. Their latest set of gear, liberated from the military who used it, supposedly, for urban combat, hadn’t started out stealth issue (much to Cat’s annoyance) but it was just about there now with modifications and tweaks.  _

_ “How’d your night go kid?”  _

_ “Why’d you send me?” _

_ “Well you let that shitty brat run Kit off so my options were limited.” Cat looked down at his hands as he spoke, yanking off his gloves to expose his hands to the warm summer air. “You’re a good kid Marco.”  _

_ He started at the use of his name; the first rule was ‘No Fucking Names Shithead’ and he’d had it shouted at him so many times he sometimes broke into a sweat trying to decide whether or not to answer to his real name in his civilian life.  _

_ “And Wall is a shit place. Getting shittier. Talon thinks...he wants some help. More than just information.” Cat paused, glancing down at the street. “I know you’ve managed to make more than enough money to be done, even with that gross habit of giving it away. Be done or stay but if you stay know you’ll be neck deep in shit.”  _

_ \--- _

“You’re a cop.” Marco almost dropped his coffee in his lap but got away with only splashing a little of the searing hot liquid on his hand. Once he was sure his crotch was safe from being scalded he focused on what was happening.

Kind of. It took another second because Blackbird kind of smelled like a walking wet dream and it was an enclosed space and he hadn’t really seen this coming.  Should have because he'd let Blackbird see his face, given his name, and they'd crossed paths a few times when he'd been his civilian self- work self? other other self?- but not so soon and not while he was literally working. How long had Blackbird been watching him? Had he been following the car?

“Birdie, you can’t be-” 

“You’re a cop.” Blackbird said it like it was a revelation, like he didn’t already know, like he wasn’t in his uniform sitting in his patrol car waiting for Hitch, his tiger of a partner, to get out of the bathroom for the fourth time that night. 

Hitch was probably knocked up and Marco was pretty sure it was the captain’s kid, which was a problem since the captain was married and Hitch was half his age and a subordinate and so many other reasons, so it seemed they were pretending it wasn’t happening.

It was the least worrying thing about his job so he didn’t dwell on it much. Just watched Hitch’s coffee intake, made sure there was dried fruit and water in the car, didn’t complain about all the peeing. 

“You caught me.” He sipped his coffee and looked over at the convenience store Hitch had run into. 

“You’re a fucking Underground PD asshole.” 

Marco made a face. “Asshole?”

He was but Blackbird couldn’t know that. His record was flawless, never so much as a civilian complaint, and he was on the verge of a promotion. His superiors loved him. Then again in the Underground that was actually a pretty good indicator of being an asshole. 

“You’re all assholes.” Then, while Marco considered that (he wasn’t that far off. Most of the people he worked with were pretty terrible), quieter. “Why’d you let me see your face? I thought you were...and then I went home and I realized you looked familiar and the name and...you’re a fucking cop.” 

“Did you have a bad cop experience or something?” He turned to face the other man, who’d slipped into his car the minute Hitch was out of sight, just in time to see light brown eyes cloud over with some remembered pain. 

Blackbird really needed to switch back to the mask that hid his eyes. He gave away far too much. 

Marco wanted to reach out and do something, longed to pull Blackbird close and so all the things his instincts were sure would help a distressed omega. 

Instead he gripped his coffee tighter.  

“I’m a cop because I thought, when I was younger and stupid, that I could change something this way.” Marco sighed and leaned back in his seat, the marrow deep wasted feeling he carried with him everywhere suddenly so there, so heavy and painful he could barely breath. 

“How’s that going?” Blackbird was laughing at him without actually laughing, voice dripping with bitterness and venom. 

“Sometimes I want to kill everyone in the department. Some days just myself.” He’d had to let a lot of bad shit happen, let it slide past him and put his head down, and it never got easier or better and becoming Stray after and fixing it a little never helped. “Talon wanted someone inside the department.”

Everyone who had ever known him knew he wanted to be a cop so it had shocked no one. Everyone who knew him also knew that at some point he’d started showing up with a lot of cash and his parents had kicked him out of the house so seeming like he was a little crooked and willing to become more so for the right amount of money had been easy too. 

Something unreadable passed over the other man’s face then he was forcing a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “When the hell do you sleep?” 

Juggling Stray and Marco was increasingly hard. He thought about himself in the third person a lot. It worried him. 

“Never.”  

Blackbird shook his head. “I just...I should go.” 

Marco nodded his agreement but thirty seconds later Blackbird was still there, rubbing at his eyes and looking every bit as tired as Marco felt. Maybe even more tired but, then, he’d just spent a heat alone and he couldn’t have ended it that long ago. The scent of it, of need and wetness and sweat, still clung to him even though the rest of his scent was again wiped away by suppressants. Now that he focused on it more it wasn’t quite as ‘wet dream’ as he’d thought but still very nice. 

“Was it okay when I kissed you?” Blackbird’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t make you uncomfortable or...something? I should have asked and-”

“You’re serious?” Blackbird hands came up then went down then, finally, came back up to rake through his hair. “Where do people like you even come from?” 

“Well-”

“It was fine. I-I liked it.” Blackbird said, looking furious. Marco wasn’t sure if he was was supposed to believe him or not but he decided not to question it. Instead he turned back to look at the store. 

“I let you see my face and told you my name because I didn’t want to lie to you.” He lied about so much already, had to lie to everyone but Levi and Armin, pretend to be two different people and neither one was who he actually was and it was suffocating. 

Admittedly he'd thought he and Blackbird were on the same 'relationship maybe' page but he didn't regret it. 

Yet.

Blackbird said something under his breath. Marco didn’t process it at first, focus on Hitch who had come out from the bathroom and was talking to the cashier. Then it sank in and he turned back, throat tight, but Blackbird was gone, the only sign he’d been there the that the door had been left open. 

“My name is Jean.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* Surprise background plots!  
> Marco started out as a perfectly normal, if not slightly naive, and really nice kid. Now he's a really nice adult who is sort of slowly dying inside while pretending he doesn't despise everyone he works with, which is what I honestly believe would have happened to Jean and Marco had they ended up as members of the Military Police.


End file.
